Incidence of occupational hardiness under the influence of extreme war factors

Abstract

Employees’ hardiness is essential for not only well-being and performance but also protection against the negative effects of stress. This study’s main objective was to determine whether Ukrainian employees’ occupational hardiness remained unchanged in the groups formed according to the degree of danger to life and deterioration of physical health and emotional condition that respondents experienced because of the Russia–Ukraine war. This study was organized as an online survey during the fourth and fifth months of the war in Ukraine and involved 1145 respondents aged 18–60 years from all regions of Ukraine. All three components of occupational hardiness (commitment, control, challenge acceptance) remained relatively unchanged in the above three groups of employees. Self-efficacy and resilience showed a notable decreasing trend in line with the stressogenic nature of the war-related negative experiences in each group. These indicators were highest in the group that did not experience danger to life or deterioration of health and emotional condition. Likewise, they were lowest in the group that experienced severe or extremely severe danger to life and significantly deteriorated health and emotional condition. Our findings expand the understanding of the nature of occupational hardiness and suggest directions for further research on this topic.

Keywords:

• Hardiness
• self-efficacy
• resilience
• employees
• extreme war factors

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).